Sania-Martina enter Rome Masters semis

Indian tennis player Sania Mirza entered the women's doubles semi-finals partnering Swiss ace Martina Hingis to earn a straight sets win in the last eight on the outdoor clay courts of Rome Masters here on Thursday.

However, it was the end of the road for the Indo-Romanian combination of Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea, who lost their men's doubles second round match to the Dutch-Romanian pair of Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau at the Foro Italico.

In the women's doubles quarter-final, the top two ranked players in the world accounted for the German-Spanish combine of Julia Goerges and Silvia Soler-Espinosa in an hour and 12 minutes with Sania and Martina winning 6-4, 6-3.

It was the same story in both the sets as Julia and Silvia broke their top seeded opponents once in each set. Sania and Martina reverted by breaking their opponents twice in both the sets.

The Indo-Swiss, who won at Indian Wells and Miami, pair were easily more dominant, winning more points on their and their opponent's serve. In total they won 62 of the 107 points played in the match and needed just one matchpoint to enter the last four of another tournament.

Earlier, Bopanna and Mergea, who won the Madrid Open title last week, went down 2-6, 7-5, 8-10 in an hour and 25 minutes in their first career meeting against the third seeds. After sharing the first two sets, it all boiled down to the super tie-break where Rojer and Tecau proved a tad bit better.

Overall, Bopanna and Mergea were as good as their opponents on their own service games but they suffered when it came to return points where they did not earn as many points as they would have liked. Also, as many as seven double faults at crucial junctures proved to be fatal.

Leander Paes, partnering Canadian Daniel Nestor, will play his match later in the day.